When indie-rockers Sundara Karma played Rescue Rooms last Friday, it fell to the Rescue Rooms crowd to provide the atmosphere and energy, with the band looking like they’d rather be back at their humble beginnings than on the stage. LeftLion discovered some redeeming moments...
Not only are their instrumentals perfumed with a psychedelic haze and splashed with a dose of indie-pop pizazz, support act Make Friends are the epitome of loveliness. Inhabiting the ethos of live music in the literal sense, experiencing these bass-fuelled emotions surrounded by
like-minded people is such a viscerally pure feeling. It’s a connection beyond language; it’s a relationship nuanced by a scene that is alive and breathing, so they’re aptly named.
The band debuted their latest single Groans as an end-of-summer soliloquy and to the few – and I emphasise the very few early attendees, you really missed out! – we were smitten with this lot.
However, it’s a subdued atmosphere in Rescue Rooms tonight. There just aren’t that many people. Perhaps the buzz of Y Not Festival has eclipsed the weekend because this room lacks its usual warmth, the draft of the air conditioning gracing our shoulders rather than the sweat. Unusually liminal and it has nothing to do with those in-between 20 minutes before the headliner.
There’s an underwhelming irony to the lyrics “Another Friday night of agitation/So many people but no conversation” because Sundara Karma have all the weeping enthusiasm of a retiring band. They look like they want to be anywhere but on stage. Considering they’re yet to celebrate their 10-year anniversary, you’d think they would just have more oomph.
Opening with such a trademarked indie hit like She Says sets a precedent that the band are woefully chasing for the rest of the night – it’s marred by feedback and technical issues from the get-go, but thankfully the audience is blissfully awash in the crimson of the guitar chords to care.
Baby Blue fizzes with frenetic energy. We’re huddled together in sonically synchronised joy, the vibrations of that punchy single flowing deep within our bones, yet it’s not enough to get the crowd going going. Not until that final chorus chimes in does the plinky electro-guitar crescendo into this soundscape of poignancy, and clearly the audience reciprocate the longing within frontman Oscar Pollock’s vocals. That transition into classically bright Friends Of Mine is the sealed deal for the centre crowd to form a pit; that torrent of bellowed kickdrum has our feet jumping on command. And we’re off...
Again, that human connection with our newfound ‘friends’ on the floor is a tangible motif. It’s at this halfway point that we’ve got arms round shoulders, T-shirts donned with an arrow to their FRIEND OF MINE companion, and since the band have taken the decision to not say a single word to the room, the people have taken it upon themselves to get to know each other between songs. Wholesomely so, if the amount of phone swaps and pictures together are anything to go by.
Those lingering gaps within the crowd we talked about earlier? I’m genuinely proud to say that they become the blossoming dancing and twirling spaces. The fact people have enough room to actually move is a welcome change to the otherwise sweatbox that some gigs can become.
One Last Night On This Earth is starkly reminiscent of a Bowie-esque track, the band demurely glamourous in their performance. It’s a stomper of a song. We’ve truly been treated to an expansive all-round good-time trip of their discography, with fan favourite Explore garnering a cheer loud enough to rival that of a sold-out show. It’s a redeeming quality.
Whether Sundara Karma appreciates the smaller crowd is debatable. Now, not every artist has to treat their show like podcast hour, but it would be nice to have some engagement. They hardly acknowledge the crowd besides the end of the set, and even then we’re not treated to the usual hide-and-seek tactics of “one more song!” Call me petty, but I like the
thrill of the expectation. What I didn’t expect was for tonight to be so not thrilling – finishing on a run of hits from your debut album really does make that title hit a little too close to home.
Perhaps it's true: Youth Is Only Ever Fun In Retrospect.
Sundara Karma performed at Rescue Rooms on 2nd August 2024, with support from Make Friends.
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